Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 23 November 2016.
I thank Simon Thomas for acting as the warm-up act to the series of questions I’m about to put on related topics. The Cabinet Secretary will be aware that the Welsh Government has required Powys County Council to increase its generating targets for electricity from renewables—from wind power, in fact—from 50 MW, to 600 MW. That could see another 200 to 300 windmills desecrating the landscape of mid Wales, over 40 per cent of all the landmass of Powys outside the Beacons national park, and up to 14 turbines could automatically, therefore, be approved, because of the presumption of planning approval under the development plan at Abergwesyn, the Begwns, Pant-y-Llyn Hill, Merthyr Cynog, Llandegley, Abbey-cwm-hir, and Hirnant. Local residents are very concerned about the impact that such developments would have upon their daily lives. Given that these projects can make no tangible difference to climate change, and even if you believe in the connection between increased carbon dioxide and global warming, is it really worth wrecking people’s lives and landscape?